Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar moduleEagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours after landing on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Michael Collins piloted the command moduleColumbia alone in lunar orbit while they were on the Moon's surface. Armstrong and Aldrin spent just under a day on the lunar surface before rejoining Columbia in lunar orbit.

Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 9:32 am EDT (13:32 UTC) and was the fifth manned mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned back to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages – a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.

After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's upper stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered into lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the lunar module Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility, they stayed a total of about 21.5 hours on the lunar surface. The astronauts used Eagle's upper stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module, they jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that blasted them out of lunar orbit on a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.

The landing was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled a national goal proposed in 1961 by U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy: "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."[6]

Framework

Crew

The crew assignment of Neil Armstrong as Commander, Jim Lovell as Command Module Pilot (CMP) and Buzz Aldrin as Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) was officially announced on November 20, 1967.[7] Apollo 11 was the second all-veteran multi-person crew on an American mission,[8] the first being that of Apollo 10).[9] An all-veteran crew would not be flown again until STS-26 in 1988.[8] Lovell and Aldrin had previously flown together as the crew of Gemini 12, the crew was initially assigned as the backup for Apollo 9. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the Lunar Module (LM), Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo 8. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11.[10] There would be one change. Mike Collins on the Apollo 8 crew began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony growth between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery.[11] Lovell took his place on the Apollo 8 crew, and, when he recovered, Collins joined Armstrong's crew as CMP; in the meantime, Fred Haise filled in as backup LMP, and Aldrin as backup CMP for Apollo 8.[12]

Backup crew

The backup crew consisted of Lovell as Commander), William Anders as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo 8;[8] in early 1969, he accepted a job with the National Space Council effective August 1969 and announced that he would retire as an astronaut on that date. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch, at which point Anders would be unavailable. Lovell, Haise, and Mattingly would ultimately be assigned as the prime crew of Apollo 13.[13]

Call signs

After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to Manned Spacecraft Center director George M. Low to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. During early mission planning, the names Snowcone and Haystack were used and put in the news release.[14]

Insignia

The Apollo 11 mission insignia was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States", at Lovell's suggestion, he chose an eagle as the symbol, put an olive branch in its beak, and drew a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. The sunlight in the image was coming from the wrong direction; the shadow should have been in the lower part of the Earth instead of the left. NASA officials felt that the talons of the eagle looked too "warlike" and after some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the claws. Armstrong was concerned that "eleven" would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with "Apollo 11";[16] they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing".[17] All colors are natural, with blue and gold borders around the patch.[citation needed]

Mementos

Neil Armstrong's personal preference kit carried a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 airplane's left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing,[20] along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Deke Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on Apollo 1 and given to Slayton after the mission but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton and Armstrong took it on Apollo 11.[21]

A Saturn V launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A, part of the Launch Complex 39 site at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 a.m. EDT local time), it entered Earth orbit, at an altitude of 100.4 nautical miles (185.9 km) by 98.9 nautical miles (183.2 km), twelve minutes later. After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed: this involved separating the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) from the spent rocket stage, turning around, and docking with the Lunar Module still attached to the stage. After the Lunar Module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon and into orbit around the Sun.[3]

On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit; in the thirty orbits[22] that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) about 12 miles (19 km) southwest of the crater Sabine D (0.67408N, 23.47297E). The landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers along with the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft and unlikely to present major landing or extravehicular activity (EVA) challenges.[23]

Lunar descent

On July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged.

As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface four seconds early and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point.

Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above the surface of the Moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected "1202" and "1201" program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officerSteve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them.[24]

Due to an error in the checklist manual, the rendezvous radar switch was placed in the wrong position, this caused it to send erroneous signals to the computer. The result was that the computer was being asked to perform all of its normal functions for landing while receiving an extra load of spurious data which used up 15% of its time, the computer (or rather the software in it) was smart enough to recognize that it was being asked to perform more tasks than it should be performing. It then sent out an alarm, which meant to the astronaut, I'm overloaded with more tasks than I should be doing at this time and I'm going to keep only the more important tasks; i.e., the ones needed for landing ... Actually, the computer was programmed to do more than recognize error conditions. A complete set of recovery programs was incorporated into the software, the software's action, in this case, was to eliminate lower priority tasks and re-establish the more important ones ... If the computer hadn't recognized this problem and taken recovery action, I doubt if Apollo 11 would have been the successful moon landing it was.[25][a]

Landing

The Apollo 11 landing site visualized in three dimensions using photography and a stereo digital elevation model from the LRO camera.

When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300-meter (980 ft) diameter crater (later determined to be West crater, named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). Armstrong took semi-automatic control[30] and, with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left.[4]

Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than other missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning, this was later found to be the result of greater propellant 'slosh' than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this.[4]

Throughout the descent, Aldrin had called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting the LM. A few moments before the landing, a light informed Aldrin that at least one of the 67-inch (170 cm) probes hanging from Eagle's footpads had touched the surface, and he said: "Contact light!" Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong said "Shutdown." Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA – out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged "Out of detent. Auto" and Aldrin continued "Mode control – both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm – off. 413 is in."

Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post landing checklist with "Engine arm is off", before responding to Duke with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed[31] change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan— Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."[4][32]

Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin radioed to Earth:

This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.[33]

He then took communion privately, at this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. As such, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the WebsterPresbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, the Rev. Dean Woodruff. Aldrin described communion on the Moon and the involvement of his church and pastor in the October 1970 edition of Guideposts magazine and in his book Return to Earth. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20.[34]

The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period as they had been awake since early morning. However, they elected to forgo the sleep period and begin the preparations for the EVA early, thinking that they would be unable to sleep.

Lunar surface operations

A photograph of Armstrong near the LM, taken by Aldrin on the lunar surface; most of the time Armstrong had the camera.

The astronauts planned placement of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package (EASEP)[35] and the U.S. flag by studying their landing site through Eagle's twin triangular windows, which gave them a 60° field of view. Preparation required longer than the two hours scheduled. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his Portable Life Support System (PLSS). According to veteran Moon-walker John Young, a redesign of the LM to incorporate a smaller hatch had not been followed by a redesign of the PLSS backpack, so some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress.[36][37]

Several books indicate early mission timelines had Buzz Aldrin rather than Neil Armstrong as the first man on the Moon.[38]

At 02:39 UTC on Monday July 21, 1969, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 02:51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface, the Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle's side and activate the TV camera, and at 02:56:15 UTC he set his left foot on the surface,[39][40] the first landing used slow-scan television incompatible with commercial TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor, significantly reducing the quality of the picture.[41] The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia,[42] despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth.[43] Although copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were accidentally destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.

The plaque left on the ladder of Eagle

While still on the ladder, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM descent stage bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon, the inscription read:

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.

After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder,"[40] six and a half hours after landing,[44] Armstrong stepped off Eagle's footpad and declared, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."[b][45][46][47][48]

Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. More recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static.[49][50]

About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick, he then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM.[51]

Twelve minutes after the contingency sample was collected,[44] Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, and described the view with the simple phrase, "Magnificent desolation."[40]

Buzz Aldrin poses on the Moon, allowing Neil Armstrong to photograph both of them using the visor's reflection

In addition to fulfilling President Kennedy's mandate to land a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s,[52] Apollo 11 was an engineering test of the Apollo system; therefore, Armstrong snapped photos of the LM so engineers would be able to judge its post-landing condition. He removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod 68 feet (21 m) from the LM. The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA.

Armstrong said that moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around."[40] Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops, the PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement, the astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle's shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, though the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow.[40]

The astronauts planted a specially designed U.S. flag on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Sometime later, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House."[53] Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief, to respect the lunar landing as Kennedy's legacy.[54] Armstrong thanked the President, and gave a brief reflection on the significance of the moment:

President Nixon speaks to Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon

Nixon: Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you've done, for every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is, because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth, for one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.

Armstrong: Thank you, Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States, but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and curiosity, and men with a vision for the future. It's an honor for us to be able to participate here today.

Aldrin bootprint; part of an experiment to test the properties of the lunar regolith

The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat, as they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust which soiled the outer part of their suits, the integrated thermal meteoroid garment.

They deployed the EASEP, which included a passive seismograph and a Lunar RangingRetroreflector (LRRR). Then Armstrong walked 196 feet (60 m) from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West Crater while Aldrin collected two core tubes. He used the geological hammer to pound in the tubes – the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11, the astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes.

During this period, Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong that his metabolic rates were high and that he should slow down, he was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. However, as metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension;[55] in a 2010 interview, Armstrong, who had walked a maximum of 196 feet (60 m) from the LM, explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon.[56]

Lunar ascent and return

Aldrin next to the Passive Seismic Experiment Package with Eagle in the background

Aldrin entered Eagle first, with some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing 21.55 kilograms (47.5 lb) of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor. Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his suit pocket sleeve, and Aldrin tossed the bag down; Armstrong then jumped to the ladder's third rung and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for the return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, one Hasselblad camera, and other equipment, they then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep.[57]

President Nixon's speech writer William Safire had prepared In Event of Moon Disaster for the President to read on television in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon,[58] the contingency plan originated in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of StaffH. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster.[59][60] According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea, the last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's First World War poem, "The Soldier".[60] The plan included presidential telephone calls to the astronauts' wives.

While moving inside the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for lift off from the Moon. There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. Fortunately, a felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch.[57] Had this not worked, the Lunar Module circuitry could have been reconfigured to allow firing the ascent engine.

After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at 17:54 UTC, they lifted off in Eagle's ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit.

After more than 21½ total hours on the lunar surface, they had left behind scientific instruments that included a retroreflector array used for the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment and a Passive Seismic Experiment Package used to measure moonquakes. They also left an Apollo 1 mission patch, and a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace and a silicon message disk, the disk carries the goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world. The disc also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and present top management.[61] (In his 1989 book, Men from Earth, Aldrin says that the items included Soviet medals commemorating CosmonautsVladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin.) Also, according to Deke Slayton's book Moonshot, Armstrong carried with him a special diamond-studded astronaut pin from Slayton.

Eagle's ascent stage approaching Columbia

Film taken from the LM Ascent Stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some 25 feet (8 m) from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple:[44] "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over."[22] Subsequent Apollo missions usually planted the American flags at least 100 feet (30 m) from the LM to prevent them being blown over by the ascent engine exhaust.

After rendezvous with Columbia, Eagle's ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit on July 21, 1969, at 23:41 UTC. Just before the Apollo 12 flight, it was noted that Eagle was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagle's orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface,[62] the location is uncertain because the Eagle ascent stage was not tracked after it was jettisoned, and the lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make the orbit of the spacecraft unpredictable after a short time. NASA estimated that the orbit had decayed within months and would have impacted on the Moon.

On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented:

... The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly ... We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of a people ... All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, "Thank you very much."

Aldrin added:

This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown ... Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"

Armstrong concluded:

The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11.[22]

On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg later was thanked by Armstrong.[63]

Splashdown and quarantine

Columbia floats on the ocean as Navy divers assist in retrieving the astronauts

The astronauts in their Biological Isolation Garments aboard the USS Hornet

At 16:44 UTC the drogue parachutes had been deployed and seven minutes later the Command Module struck the water forcefully, during splashdown, the Command Module landed upside down but was righted within 10 minutes by flotation bags triggered by the astronauts. "Everything's okay. Our checklist is complete. Awaiting swimmers", was Armstrong's last official transmission from Columbia. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to the Command Module to prevent it from drifting. Additional divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and position rafts for astronaut extraction. Though the chance of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, it was considered a possibility and NASA took great precautions at the recovery site. Divers provided the astronauts with Biological Isolation Garments (BIGs) which were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board the Hornet. Additionally, astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and the Command Module wiped with Betadine to remove any lunar dust that might be present, the raft containing decontamination materials was then intentionally sunk.[67]

A second Sea King helicopter - "Helicopter 66" - hoisted the astronauts aboard one by one, where a NASA flight surgeon gave each a brief physical check during the 0.5 nautical miles (930 m) trip back to the Hornet.

The crew of Apollo 11 in quarantine after returning to Earth, visited by Richard Nixon

After touchdown on the Hornet, the astronauts exited the helicopter, leaving the flight surgeon and three crewmen, the helicopter was then lowered into hangar bay #2 where the astronauts walked the 30 feet (9.1 m) to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) where they would begin the earth-based portion of their 21 days of quarantine.[68] This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life and the quarantine process dropped.[67][69]

President Richard Nixon was aboard Hornet to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth, he told the astronauts, "As a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before."[70] After Nixon departed, the Hornet was brought alongside the five-ton Command Module where it was placed aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF, the Hornet sailed for Pearl Harbor where Columbia and the MQF were airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center.[67]

In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16[71] to codify its quarantine protocol, the astronauts continued in quarantine out of concern that the Moon might contain undiscovered pathogens and that the astronauts might have been exposed to them during their Moon walks. However, after three weeks in confinement (first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on the Hornet, and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health,[72] on August 10, 1969, the Interagency Committee on Back Contamination met in Atlanta and lifted the quarantine on the astronauts, on those who had joined them in quarantine (NASA physician William Carpentier and MQF project engineer John Hirasaki[73]), and on Columbia itself.[74] Loose equipment from the spacecraft would remain in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study.[74]

On September 16, 1969, the three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill, they presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate, that had been carried to the surface of the Moon with them.[79]

Moon race

Artist's impression of Luna 15

The Soviet Union had been competing with the US in landing a man on the Moon but had been hampered by repeated failures in development of a launcher comparable to the Saturn V.[80] Meanwhile, they tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of unmanned probes, on July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, they launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon's surface to begin their voyage home, the Jodrell Bank Observatory radio telescope in England was later discovered to have recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and this was published in July 2009 on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.[81]

In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon, for the first time with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts.

In March 2012 a team of specialists financed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the F-1 engines that launched Apollo 11 into space. The engines were found below the Atlantic Ocean's surface through the use of advanced sonar scanning,[82] his team brought parts of two of the five engines to the surface. In July 2013, a conservator discovered a serial number under the rust on one of the engines raised from the Atlantic, which NASA confirmed was from the Apollo 11 launch.[83][84]

40th anniversary events

On July 15, 2009, Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by Life photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch.[87] From July 16–24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred;[88] in addition, it is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments.[89] In July 2010, air-to-ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronised and released for the first time,[90] the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up a Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon.[91]

On July 20, 2009, the crew of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.[92] "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin", Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey."[93] On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States, the bill was sponsored by Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson.[94][95]

A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing:

It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today ... The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date ... nothing since Apollo has come close [to] the excitement that was generated by those astronauts – Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them.[96]

The Washington Post on Monday, July 21, 1969: "'The Eagle Has Landed'—Two Men Walk on the Moon"

Notes

^During the mission, the cause was diagnosed as the rendezvous radar switch being in the wrong position, causing the computer to process data from both the rendezvous and landing radars at the same time, as stated in the letter.[1][26] However, software engineer Don Eyles concluded in a 2005 Guidance and Control Conference paper that the problem was actually due to a hardware design bug previously seen during testing of the first unmanned LM for Apollo 5. Having the rendezvous radar on (so that it was warmed up in case of an emergency landing abort) should have been irrelevant to the computer, but an electrical phasing mismatch between two parts of the rendezvous radar system could cause the stationary antenna to appear to the computer as dithering back and forth between two positions, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up, the extra spurious cycle stealing, as the rendezvous radar updated an involuntary counter, caused the computer alarms.[27] The Apollo onboard flight software for both the CM and LM was developed using an asynchronous executive so that higher priority jobs could interrupt lower priority jobs, the sequence that occurred in the Apollo 11 landing was successful because of its global error detection and recovery system. This included the restart capability to "kill and start over again" and recompute and the display interface routines ("priority displays") providing the ability, in the case of an emergency, to interrupt nominal displays with higher priority alarm displays. Steps previously taken to create solutions that took advantage of this multiprogramming environment suggested solutions for multiprocessing, although only one process is actively executing at a given time in a multiprogramming environment, other processes in the same system―sleeping or waiting―exist in parallel with the executing process. With this as a backdrop, the priority display mechanisms were created, essentially changing the man-machine interface between the astronauts and the onboard flight software from synchronous to asynchronous displays so that a mission could be reconfigured in real time should it become necessary to do so.[28]

^A NASA transcript explains that the "a" article was intended, whether or not it was said;[40] the intention was to contrast a man (an individual's action) and mankind (as a species).

1.
Buzz Aldrin
–
Buzz Aldrin is an American engineer and former astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, he was one of the first two humans to land on the Moon, and the person to walk on it. He set foot on the Moon at 03,15,16 on July 21,1969 and he is a former U. S. Air Force officer with the Command Pilot rating. Aldrin was born January 20,1930, in Mountainside Hospital, in Glen Ridge and his parents were Edwin Eugene Aldrin Sr. a career military man, and Marion Aldrin, who lived in neighboring Montclair. He is of Scottish, Swedish, and German ancestry, Aldrin was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of Tenderfoot Scout. The nickname Buzz originated in childhood, the younger of his two elder sisters mispronounced brother as buzzer, and this was shortened to Buzz, Aldrin made it his legal first name in 1988. Aldrin graduated third in his class at West Point in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering and he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force and served as a jet fighter pilot during the Korean War. He flew 66 combat missions in F-86 Sabres and shot down two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 aircraft, the June 8,1953, issue of Life magazine featured gun camera photos taken by Aldrin of one of the Soviet pilots ejecting from his damaged aircraft. That same year, he graduated from the Squadron Officer School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and he flew F-100 Super Sabres as a flight commander at Bitburg Air Base, West Germany, in the 22d Fighter Squadron. In January 1963, Aldrin earned a Sc. D. degree in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if only I could join them in their exciting endeavors. On completion of his doctorate, he was assigned to the Gemini Target Office of the Air Force Space Systems Division in Los Angeles before his selection as an astronaut, Aldrin was selected as a member of the third group of NASA astronauts in October 1963. Because test pilot experience was no longer a requirement, this was the first selection for which he was eligible, after the deaths of the original Gemini 9 prime crew, Elliot See and Charles Bassett, Aldrin and Jim Lovell were promoted to backup crew for the mission. He was confirmed as pilot on Gemini 12, the last Gemini mission and he set a record for EVA, demonstrating that astronauts could work outside spacecraft. Aldrin was chosen for the crew of Apollo 11 and made the first lunar landing with commander Neil Armstrong on July 20,1969. The next day, Aldrin became the person to walk on the Moon. Aldrins first words on the Moon were Beautiful view, then, in response to Armstrong asking, Isnt it magnificent. He was also the first person to urinate while on the Moon, there has been speculation about the extent of Aldrins desire at the time to be the first astronaut to walk on the Moon and its impact on his pre-flight, in-mission and post-flight actions. Also, Armstrong was the Mission Commander, and other astronauts who would command later Apollo missions were not sympathetic to Aldrins views

2.
Extravehicular activity
–
Extravehicular activity is any activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft beyond the Earths appreciable atmosphere. On each of the last three of these missions, astronauts also performed deep-space EVAs on the return to Earth, to retrieve film canisters from the outside of the spacecraft, astronauts also used EVA in 1973 to repair launch damage to Skylab, the United States first space station. A Stand-up EVA is where the astronaut does not fully leave a spacecraft and its name derives from the astronaut standing up in the open hatch, usually to record or assist a spacewalking astronaut. EVAs may be tethered, or untethered. S. The Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, and China have conducted EVAs, to support this, and other Apollo objectives, the Gemini program was spun off to develop the capability for astronauts to work outside a two-man Earth orbiting spacecraft. The Soviets were able to launch two Voskhod capsules before U. S. was able to launch its first manned Gemini, by contrast, the Gemini avionics did not require air cooling, allowing the spacewalking astronaut to exit and re-enter the depressurized cabin through an open hatch. Because of this, the American and Soviet space programs developed different definitions for the duration of an EVA, the Soviet definition begins when the outer airlock hatch is open and the cosmonaut is in vacuum. An American EVA began when the astronaut had at least his head outside the spacecraft, the USA has changed its EVA definition since. The first EVA was performed on March 18,1965 by Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, carrying a white metal backpack containing 45 minutes worth of breathing and pressurization oxygen, Leonov had no means to control his motion other than pulling on his 15.35 m tether. At the end of his walk, the suit stiffening caused a more serious problem. He improperly entered the airlock head-first and got stuck sideways and he could not get back in without reducing the pressure in his suit, risking the bends. This added another 12 minutes to his time in vacuum, and it would be almost four years before the Soviets tried another EVA. They misrepresented to the press how difficult Leonov found it to work in weightlessness, the first American spacewalk was performed on June 3,1965, by Edward H. White, II from the second manned Gemini flight, Gemini 4, for 21 minutes. White was tethered to the spacecraft, and his oxygen was supplied through a 25-foot umbilical and he was the first to control his motion in space with a Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit, which worked well but only carried enough propellant for 20 seconds. White found his tether useful for limiting his distance from the spacecraft but difficult to use for moving around, no EVAs were planned on the next three Gemini flights. The next EVA was planned to be made by David Scott on Gemini 8, astronauts on the next three Gemini flights, performed several EVAs, but none was able to successfully work for long periods outside the spacecraft without tiring and overheating. Cernan attempted but failed to test an Air Force Astronaut Maneuvering Unit which included a self-contained oxygen system, on November 13,1966, Edwin Buzz Aldrin became the first to successfully work in space without tiring, on the Gemini 12 last flight. Aldrin worked outside the spacecraft for 2 hours and 6 minutes, on January 16,1969, Soviet cosmonauts Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov transferred from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4, which were docked together

3.
Geology of the Moon
–
The geology of the Moon is quite different from that of Earth. The complex geomorphology of the surface has been formed by a combination of processes, especially impact cratering. The Moon is a body, with a crust, mantle. Geological studies of the Moon are based on a combination of Earth-based telescope observations, measurements from orbiting spacecraft, lunar samples, and geophysical data. Six locations were sampled directly during the manned Apollo program landings from 1969 to 1972, in addition, three robotic Soviet Luna spacecraft returned another 326 grams from 1970 to 1976. The Moon is the only body for which we have samples with a known geologic context. A handful of lunar meteorites have been recognized on Earth, though their source craters on the Moon are unknown, a substantial portion of the lunar surface has not been explored, and a number of geological questions remain unanswered. Elements known to be present on the surface include, among others, oxygen, silicon, iron, magnesium, calcium, aluminium, manganese. Among the more abundant are oxygen, iron and silicon, the oxygen content is estimated at 45%. Carbon and nitrogen appear to be present only in quantities from deposition by solar wind. Neutron spectrometry data from Lunar Prospector indicate the presence of hydrogen concentrated at the poles, for a long period of time, the fundamental question regarding the history of the Moon was of its origin. Early hypotheses included fission from Earth, capture, and co-accretion, today, the giant impact hypothesis is widely accepted by the scientific community. The geological history of the Moon has been defined into six major epochs, starting about 4.5 billion years ago, the newly formed Moon was in a molten state and was orbiting much closer to Earth resulting in tidal forces. These tidal forces deformed the molten body into an ellipsoid, with the major axis pointed towards Earth, the first important event in the geologic evolution of the Moon was the crystallization of the near global magma ocean. It is not known with certainty what its depth was, the first minerals to form in this ocean were the iron and magnesium silicates olivine and pyroxene. Because these minerals were denser than the material around them. After crystallization was about 75% complete, less dense anorthositic plagioclase feldspar crystallized and floated, forming an anorthositic crust about 50 km in thickness. The oldest of the Mg-suite rocks have ages of about 3.85 Ga. However

4.
NASA
–
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems

5.
Apollo Command/Service Module
–
The Command/Service Module was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation and it was launched by itself on three suborbital and low Earth orbit Apollo test missions using the Saturn IB launch vehicle. It was also launched twelve times on the larger Saturn V launch vehicle and it made a total of nine manned flights to the Moon aboard the Saturn V. The Service Module was cast off and allowed to burn up in the atmosphere before the Command Module re-entered, the Apollo 1 flight was cancelled after a cabin fire killed the entire crew and destroyed the Command Module during a launch rehearsal test. Corrections of the problems caused the fire were applied to the Block II spacecraft. Therefore, design proceeded without a means of docking the Command Module to a Lunar Excursion Module, but the change to lunar orbit rendezvous, plus several technical obstacles encountered in some subsystems, soon made it clear that substantial redesign would be required. Block II would be the version, including a docking hatch and incorporating weight reduction. Detailed design of the docking capability depended on design of the LEM, by January 1964, North American started presenting Block II design details to NASA. Block I spacecraft were used for all unmanned Saturn 1B and Saturn V test flights, initially two manned flights were planned, but this was reduced to one in late 1966. This mission, designated AS-204 but named Apollo 1 by its crew, was planned for launch on February 21,1967. After a thorough investigation by the Apollo 204 Review Board, it was decided to terminate the manned Block I phase, the two blocks were essentially similar in overall dimensions, but several design improvements resulted in weight reduction in Block II. Also, the Block I Service Module propellant tanks were slightly larger than in Block II, the Apollo 1 spacecraft weighed approximately 45,000 pounds, while the Block II Apollo 7 weighed 36,400 lb. In the specifications given below, unless noted, all weights given are for the Block II spacecraft. The total cost of the CSM for development and the produced was $36. 9B in 2016 dollars. The Command Module was a truncated cone 10 feet 7 inches tall with a diameter of 12 feet 10 inches across the base, the forward compartment contained two reaction control engines, the docking tunnel, and the components of the Earth Landing System. The inner pressure vessel housed the crew accommodations, equipment bays, controls and displays, the last section, the aft compartment, contained 10 reaction control engines and their related propellant tanks, fresh water tanks, and the CSM umbilical cables. The Command Module consisted of two basic structures joined together, the structure and the outer structure. The inner structure was a sandwich construction which consisted of a welded aluminum inner skin, adhesively bonded aluminum honeycomb core

6.
Apollo Lunar Module
–
After completing its mission, the LM was discarded. It was capable of only in outer space, structurally and aerodynamically it was incapable of flight through the Earths atmosphere. The Lunar Module was the first manned spacecraft to operate exclusively in the vacuum of space. It was the first, and to date only, crewed vehicle to land on an object in the solar system other than the Earth. Six such craft successfully landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972, a seventh provided propulsion and life support for the crew of Apollo 13 when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon. The LMs development was plagued with problems which delayed its first unmanned flight by about ten months, despite this, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle, the only component never to suffer a failure that significantly affected a mission. The total cost of the LM for development and the produced was $21. 3B in 2016 dollars. At launch, the Lunar Module sat directly beneath the Command/Service Module with legs folded, there it remained through earth parking orbit and the Trans Lunar Injection rocket burn to send the craft toward the Moon. Soon after TLI, the SLA opened and the CSM separated, turned around, came back to dock with the Lunar Module, during the flight to the Moon, the docking hatches were opened and the LM Pilot entered the LM to temporarily power up and test its systems. Throughout the flight, he performed the role of an engineering officer, at this point, the engine was started again for Powered Descent Initiation. During this time the crew flew on their backs, depending on the computer to slow the crafts forward, Control was exercised with a combination of engine throttling and attitude thrusters, guided by the computer with the aid of landing radar. During the braking phase altitude decreased to approximately 10,000 feet, during final approach, the vehicle pitched over to a near-vertical position, allowing the crew to look forward and down to see the lunar surface for the first time. Finally the landing began, approximately 2,000 feet uprange of the targeted landing site. Beginning with Apollo 14, increased LM fuel was available for the powered descent and landing, by using the CSM engine to achieve the 50. After the spacecraft undocked, the CSM raised and circularized its orbit for the remainder of the mission. When ready to leave the Moon, the LM would separate the descent stage and fire the ascent engine to back into orbit. After a few course correction burns, the LM would rendezvous with the CSM and dock for transfer of the crew, having completed its job, the LM was separated and sent into solar orbit or to crash into the Moon. The Lunar Module was designed after NASA chose to reach the Moon via Lunar Orbit Rendezvous instead of the ascent or Earth Orbit Rendezvous methods

7.
Grumman
–
The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a leading 20th century U. S. producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6,1929, by Leroy Grumman and partners, factory in Baldwin on Long Island, New York. All of the early Grumman employees were former Loening employees, the company was named for Grumman because he was its largest investor. The company filed as a business on December 5,1929, keeping busy by welding aluminum tubing for truck frames, the company eagerly pursued contracts with the US Navy. Grumman designed the first practical floats with a landing gear for the Navy. The first Grumman aircraft was also for the Navy, the Grumman FF-1 and this was followed by a number of other successful designs. Grumman ranked 22nd among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts, Grummans first jet aircraft was the F9F Panther, it was followed by the upgraded F9F/F-9 Cougar, and the less well known F-11 Tiger in the 1950s. The companys big postwar successes came in the 1960s with the A-6 Intruder and E-2 Hawkeye and in the 1970s with the Grumman EA-6B Prowler, Grumman products were prominent in the film Top Gun and numerous World War II naval and Marine Corps aviation films. The U. S. Navy still employs the Hawkeye as part of Carrier Air Wings on board aircraft carriers, Grumman was the chief contractor on the Apollo Lunar Module that landed men on the moon. The firm received the contract on November 7,1962, as the Apollo program neared its end, Grumman was one of the main competitors for the contract to design and build the Space Shuttle, but lost to Rockwell International. The company ended up involved in the program nonetheless, as a subcontractor to Rockwell, providing the wings. In 1969 the company changed its name to Grumman Aerospace Corporation, the company built the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, a light transport mail truck designed for and used by the United States Postal Service. The LLV entered service in 1986, Gulfstream business jets continue to be currently manufactured by Gulfstream Aerospace which is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics. For much of the Cold War period Grumman was the largest corporate employer on Long Island, Grummans products were considered so reliable and ruggedly built that the company was often referred to as the Grumman Iron Works. At its peak in 1986 it employed 23,000 people on Long Island, a portion of the airport property has been used for the Grumman Memorial Park. Northrop Grummans remaining business at the Bethpage campus is the Battle Management and Engagement Systems Division, under the Grumman Olson brand it made the P-600 and P-6800 step vans for UPS. Grumman manufactured fire engines under the name Firecat and aerial tower trucks under the Aerialcat name, the company entered the fire apparatus business in 1976 with its purchase of Howe Fire Apparatus and ended operations in 1992. Grumman canoes were developed in 1944 as World War II was winding down, Company executive William Hoffman used the companys aircraft aluminum to replace the traditional wood design

8.
Neil Armstrong
–
Neil Alden Armstrong was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an engineer, naval aviator, test pilot. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U. S. Navy and he later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California. A participant in the U. S. Air Forces Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs and he made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASAs first civilian astronaut to fly in space. He performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott and this mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his reentry control fuel to prevent a dangerous spin caused by a stuck thruster, in the first in-flight space emergency. Armstrongs second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11, along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, Armstrong and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio on August 25,2012, at the age of 82, Armstrong was born on August 5,1930 near Wapakoneta, Ohio, the son of Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel. He was of German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry, and had a sister, June. His father worked as an auditor for the Ohio state government, Armstrongs love for flying grew during this time, having gotten off to an early start when his father took his two-year-old son to the Cleveland Air Races. When he was five, he experienced his first airplane flight in Warren, Ohio on July 20,1936 when he and his father took a ride in a Ford Trimotor and his fathers last move was in 1944, back to Wapakoneta. Armstrong attended Blume High School and took flying lessons at the grassy Wapakoneta airfield and he earned a student flight certificate on his 16th birthday, then soloed later in August, all before he had a drivers license. Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout, as an adult, he was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award. Houston replied, Thank you, Apollo 11, Im sure that, if they didnt hear that, theyll get the word through the news. Among the very few items that Neil Armstrong carried with him to the Moon. In 1947, at age 17, Armstrong began studying engineering at Purdue University. He was the person in his family to attend college. He was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the only engineer he knew dissuaded him from attending, telling Armstrong that it was not necessary to go all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a good education

9.
Michael Collins (astronaut)
–
Michael Collins, is an American former astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the group of fourteen astronauts in 1963. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10, in which he and his second spaceflight was as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11. While he stayed in orbit around the Moon, Neil Armstrong and he is one of 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Collins was the person, and third American, to perform an EVA. Prior to becoming an astronaut, he attended the United States Military Academy and he was accepted to the U. S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960. He unsuccessfully applied for the astronaut group, but was accepted for the third group. After retiring from NASA in 1970 he took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, a year later he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum. He held this position until 1978 when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business and he was married to Patricia Collins until her death in April 2014. They had three children, Kate, Ann, and Michael, Collins was born in Rome, Italy, on October 31,1930, to U. S. Army Major General James Lawton Collins, who served in the army for 38 years. For the first 17 years of his life, Collins called Rome, Oklahoma, Governors Island, New York, Puerto Rico, San Antonio, Texas and he took his first ride in a plane in Puerto Rico aboard a Grumman Widgeon. His father often told of how his own first plane ride had been in 1911 with Frank Lahm in the Philippines and he studied for two years in the Academia del Perpetuo Socorro in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After the United States entered World War II, the moved to Washington, D. C. where Collins attended St. Albans School. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, finishing 185th out of 527 cadets in 1952, Lawton Collins, was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. The Air Force Academy was in its construction phase. In the interim, graduates of the Military Academy, Naval Academy and he was chosen for advanced day fighter training at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, flying F-86 Sabres. This was followed by an assignment to the 21st Fighter-Bomber Wing at George Air Force Base, California and he transferred with the 21st when it was relocated to Chaumont-Semoutiers Air Base, France, in June 1954

10.
Tranquility Base
–
Tranquility Base is the site on the Moon where, in 1969, humans landed and walked on another celestial body for the first time. On July 20,1969, Apollo 11 crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module Eagle at approximately 20,17,40 UTC.5 pounds of dirt and they lifted off the surface on July 21 at 17,54 UTC. Tranquility Base has remained unvisited since then. S, for more than two years, NASA planners considered a collection of 30 potential sites for the first manned landing. Site number 2, centered at 0°42′50″N 23°42′28″E, was the Sea of Tranquility site ultimately chosen, since a precision landing was not expected on the first mission, the target area was an ellipse measuring 11.5 miles east-west by 3.0 miles north-south. Thus the landing was still within the target ellipse, Armstrong named the site at 20,17,58 UTC, approximately 18 seconds after his and Aldrins successful landing, as he announced, Houston, Tranquility Base here. During training, Armstrong and Aldrin had exclusively used the callsign Eagle in simulated ground conversations, Armstrong and Aldrin decided on using Tranquility Base just before the flight, telling only Capsule Communicator Charles Duke before the mission, so Duke would not be taken by surprise. The name has become a permanent designation for the site, unlike most names given to lunar landmarks by Apollo astronauts, the International Astronomical Union officially recognizes the designation Tranquility Base. It is listed on maps as Statio Tranquillitatis, conforming to the standard use of Latin names for lunar place names. About 100 man-made objects and footprints left by Armstrong and Aldrin remain at Tranquility Base, the descent stage of the Lunar Module remains at the original point of landing. According to Aldrin, the US flag planted at the site during their moonwalk was blown over by the ascent rocket exhaust, a laser reflector was placed at the site to allow precise ongoing measurements of the distance to the Moon from Earth. A solar-powered seismometer was also left to measure moonquakes, but this stopped functioning after 21 days, various gear that was no longer needed for the return phase of the mission – including Aldrins boots – was left behind to lighten the craft for return to lunar orbit. As the site of the first human landing on a body, Tranquility Base has cultural. The U. S. states of California and New Mexico have listed it on their heritage registers, since their laws require only that listed sites have some association with the state. Despite the location of Mission Control in Houston, Texas has not granted similar status to the site, one team, led by Astrobotic Technology, announced it would attempt to land a craft at Tranquility Base

11.
Saturn V
–
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA between 1967 and 1973. The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload, to date, the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to launch missions to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit. A total of 15 flight-capable vehicles were built, but only 13 were flown, an additional three vehicles were built for ground testing purposes. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon, three of them twice, in the four years spanning December 1968 through December 1972 and it was known that Americas rival, the Soviet Union, would also try to secure some of the Germans. Von Braun was put into the design division of the Army due to his prior direct involvement in the creation of the V-2 rocket. Between 1945 and 1958, his work was restricted to conveying the ideas, finally, they turned to von Braun and his team, who during these years created and experimented with the Jupiter series of rockets. The Juno I was the rocket launched the first American satellite in January 1958. The Jupiter series was one step in von Brauns journey to the Saturn V. The Saturn Vs design stemmed from the designs of the Jupiter series rockets, as the success of the Jupiter series became evident, the Saturn series emerged. Between 1960 and 1962, the Marshall Space Flight Center designed a series of Saturn rockets that could be used for various Earth orbit or lunar missions. NASA planned to use the C-3 as part of the Earth Orbit Rendezvous concept, the C-4 would need only two launches to carry out an EOR lunar mission. On January 10,1962, NASA announced plans to build the C-5. The three-stage rocket would consist of, the S-IC first stage, with five F-1 engines, the S-II second stage, with five J-2 engines, the C-5 was designed for a 90, 000-pound payload capacity to the Moon. The C-5 would undergo component testing even before the first model was constructed, by testing all components at once, far fewer test flights would be required before a manned launch. The C-5 was confirmed as NASAs choice for the Apollo program in early 1963, the C-1 became the Saturn I, and C-1B became Saturn IB. Von Braun headed a team at the Marshall Space Flight Center in building a vehicle capable of launching a spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon. Before they moved under NASAs jurisdiction, von Brauns team had begun work on improving the thrust, creating a less complex operating system. It was during these revisions that the decision to reject the single engine of the V-2s design came about, the Saturn I and IB reflected these changes, but were not large enough to send a manned spacecraft to the Moon

12.
Kennedy Space Center
–
The John F. Kennedy Space Center is one of ten National Aeronautics and Space Administration field centers. Since December 1968, Kennedy Space Center has been NASAs primary launch center of human spaceflight, Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources, and even own facilities on each others property. Additionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial missions, researches food production and In-Situ Resource Utilization for off Earth exploration. Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, there are about 700 facilities grouped across the centers 144,000 acres. There is also a Visitor Complex open to the public on site, the military had been performing launch operations since 1949 at what would become Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In December 1959, the Department of Defense transferred 5,000 personnel, President John F. Kennedys 1961 goal of a manned lunar landing before 1970 required an expansion of launch operations. On July 1,1962, the Launch Operations Directorate was separated from MSFC to become the Launch Operations Center, therefore, the decision was made to build a new LOC site located adjacent to Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island. NASA began land acquisition in 1962, buying title to 131 square miles, the major buildings in KSCs Industrial Area were designed by architect Charles Luckman. Construction began in November 1962, and Kennedy visited the site twice in 1962, on November 29,1963, the facility was given its current name by President Lyndon B. Johnson under Executive Order 11129. Johnsons order joined both the civilian LOC and the military Cape Canaveral station under the designation John F. Kennedy Space Center, spawning some confusion joining the two in the public mind. Located on Merritt Island, Florida, the center is north-northwest of Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic Ocean and it is 34 miles long and roughly six miles wide, covering 219 square miles. KSC is a major central Florida tourist destination and is one hours drive from the Orlando area. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex offers public tours of the center, Center workers can encounter bald eagles, American alligators, wild boars, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, the endangered Florida panther and Florida manatees. From 1967 through 1973, there were 13 Saturn V launches, the first of two unmanned flights, Apollo 4 on November 9,1967, was also the first rocket launch from KSC. The Saturn Vs first manned launch on December 21,1968 was Apollo 8s lunar orbiting mission, the next two missions tested the Lunar Module, Apollo 9 and Apollo 10. Apollo 11, launched from Pad A on July 16,1969, Apollo 12 followed four months later. From 1970–1972, the Apollo program concluded at KSC with the launches of missions 13 through 17, on May 14,1973, the last Saturn V launch put the Skylab space station in orbit from Pad 39A

13.
Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39
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Launch Complex 39 is a rocket launch site at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site and its collection of facilities were built for the Apollo program. As of 2017, only Launch Complex 39A is active, launching SpaceXs Falcon 9. LC-39 is also being modified to support launches of the SpaceXs Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy, as well as NASAs Space Launch System, with a new, smaller pad, C, added to support smaller launches. SpaceX leases Launch Pad 39A from NASA and has modified the pad to support Falcon Heavy launches in 2017 and beyond. NASA began modifying Launch Pad 39B in 2007 to accommodate the now defunct Project Constellation, Pad C was originally planned but never built for Apollo, and would have been a copy of pads 39A and 39B. A smaller pad, designated 39C was constructed from January to June 2015 to accommodate small-class vehicles, NASA launches from LC-39A and 39B have been supervised from the NASA Launch Control Center, located 3 miles from the launch pads. LC-39 is one of launch sites that share radar and tracking services of the Eastern Test Range. During the 1920s, Peter E. Studebaker Jr. son of the automobile magnate, in 1948, the Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station located south of Cape Canaveral, to the Air Force for use in testing captured German V-2 rockets. The sites location on the East Florida coast was ideal for this purpose in that launches would be over the ocean and this site became the Joint Long Range Proving Ground in 1949, and was renamed Patrick Air Force Base in 1950. The Air Force annexed part of Cape Canaveral to the North in 1951, forming the Air Force Missile Test Center, Missile and rocketry testing and development would take place here through the 1950s. After the creation of NASA in 1958, the CCAFS launch pads were used for NASAs civilian unmanned and manned launches, including those of Project Mercury, in 1961, President Kennedy proposed to Congress the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. NASA began acquisition of land in 1962, taking title to 131 square miles by outright purchase, on July 1,1962, the site was named the Launch Operations Center. At the time, the highest numbered launch pad on CCAFS was Launch Complex 37 and it was designed to handle launches of the Saturn V rocket, at the time the largest, most powerful rocket then designed, required to take Apollo to the Moon. Initial plans included four pads evenly spaced 8,700 feet apart to damage in the event of an explosion on the pad. Three were scheduled for construction and two would have built at a later date. The numbering of the pads at the time was from north to south, with the northernmost being 39A, Pad 39A was never built, and 39C became 39A in 1963. With todays numbering, 39C would have been north of 39B, Pad 39E would have been due north of the mid-distance between 39C and 39D, with 39E forming the top of a triangle, and equidistant from 39C and 39D

14.
USS Hornet (CV-12)
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USS Hornet is a United States Navy aircraft carrier of the Essex class. She was originally named USS Kearsarge, but was renamed in honor of the USS Hornet, Hornet was commissioned in November 1943, and after three months of training joined the U. S. forces in the Pacific War. She played a part in the Pacific battles of World War II. Following World War II, she served in the Vietnam War, Hornet was finally decommissioned in 1970. She was eventually designated as both a National Historic Landmark and a California Historical Landmark, and in 1998 she opened to the public as the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, California. The contract to build Kearsarge had been given to Newport News Shipbuilding on 9 September 1940, the seventh Hornet was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz on 26 October 1942, and the CV-12 hull was renamed Hornet. Larger and more advanced than her Yorktown-class namesake, she was launched on 30 August 1943 and her first commander was Captain Miles R. Browning. The Hornet conducted shakedown training off Bermuda before departing Norfolk on 14 February 1944 to join the Fast Carrier Task Force on 20 March at Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands, on 11 June, Hornet launched raids on Tinian and Saipan. The following day she conducted heavy bombing attacks on Guam and Rota, on 15–16 June, she blasted Japanese air fields at Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima to prevent air attacks on troops invading Saipan in the Marianas. The afternoon of 18 June, Hornet formed with the Fast Carrier Task Force to intercept the Japanese First Mobile Fleet, the Japanese approached the American carriers in four massive waves, full of young and inexperienced pilots. Nearly every Japanese aircraft was shot down in the air battles of 19 June that became commonly known as The Marianas Turkey Shoot. Her aircraft gave direct support to the troops invading Leyte on 20 October 1944, in the following months, Hornet attacked Japanese shipping and airfields throughout the Philippines. This included participation in a raid destroyed an entire Japanese convoy in Ormoc Bay. On 30 December, she departed Ulithi in the Carolines for raids against Formosa, Indo-China, en route back to Ulithi, Hornets planes conducted photo reconnaissance of Okinawa on 22 January 1945 to aid the planned invasion of that last stepping-stone to Japan. Hornet again departed Ulithi on 10 February for full-scale aerial assaults on Tokyo, repeated raids were made against the Tokyo plains industrial complex, and Okinawa was hard hit. On 1 April, Hornet planes gave direct support to the assault landings on Okinawa. On 6 April, her aircraft joined in attacks which sank the Japanese battleship Yamato, the Hornet launched 3 torpedoes and her aircraft dropped 4 bombs on the Yamato. The following two months found Hornet alternating between close support to troops on Okinawa and hard-hitting raids to destroy the industrial capacity of Japan

15.
Lunar orbit
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In astronomy, lunar orbit refers to the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth. The Soviet Union sent the first spacecraft to the vicinity of the Moon and it passed within 6,000 kilometres of the Moons surface, but did not achieve lunar orbit. This craft provided the first pictures of the far side of the Lunar surface, the Soviet Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to actually orbit the Moon in April 1966. It studied micrometeoroid flux, and lunar environment until May 30,1966, the first United States spacecraft to orbit the Moon was Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 14,1966. The first orbit was an elliptical orbit, with an apolune of 1,008 nautical miles, then the orbit was circularized at around 170 nautical miles to obtain suitable imagery. Five such spacecraft were launched over a period of thirteen months, all of which successfully mapped the Moon, the most recent was the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, which became a ballistic impact experiment in 2014. The Apollo programs Command/Service Module remained in a parking orbit while the Lunar Module landed. The combined CSM/LM would first enter an orbit, nominally 170 nautical miles by 60 nautical miles. Orbital periods vary according to the sum of apoapsis and periapsis, the LM began its landing sequence with a Descent Orbit Insertion burn to lower their periapsis to about 50,000 feet, chosen to avoid hitting lunar mountains reaching heights of 20,000 feet. These anomalies are significant enough to cause an orbit to change significantly over the course of several days. The Apollo 11 first manned landing mission employed the first attempt to correct for the perturbation effect. The parking orbit was circularized at 66 nautical miles by 54 nautical miles, but the effect was overestimated by a factor of two, at rendezvous the orbit was calculated to be 63.2 nautical miles by 56.8 nautical miles. The Apollo 15 subsatellite PFS-1 and the Apollo 16 subsatellite PFS-2, PFS-1 ended up in a long-lasting orbit, at 28 degrees inclination, and successfully completed its mission after one and a half years. PFS-2 was placed in a particularly unstable orbital inclination of 11 degrees, list of orbits Mass concentration Orbital mechanics

16.
Apsis
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An apsis is an extreme point in an objects orbit. The word comes via Latin from Greek and is cognate with apse, for elliptic orbits about a larger body, there are two apsides, named with the prefixes peri- and ap-, or apo- added to a reference to the thing being orbited. For a body orbiting the Sun, the point of least distance is the perihelion, the terms become periastron and apastron when discussing orbits around other stars. For any satellite of Earth including the Moon the point of least distance is the perigee, for objects in Lunar orbit, the point of least distance is the pericynthion and the greatest distance the apocynthion. For any orbits around a center of mass, there are the terms pericenter and apocenter, periapsis and apoapsis are equivalent alternatives. A straight line connecting the pericenter and apocenter is the line of apsides and this is the major axis of the ellipse, its greatest diameter. For a two-body system the center of mass of the lies on this line at one of the two foci of the ellipse. When one body is larger than the other it may be taken to be at this focus. Historically, in systems, apsides were measured from the center of the Earth. In orbital mechanics, the apsis technically refers to the distance measured between the centers of mass of the central and orbiting body. However, in the case of spacecraft, the family of terms are used to refer to the orbital altitude of the spacecraft from the surface of the central body. The arithmetic mean of the two limiting distances is the length of the axis a. The geometric mean of the two distances is the length of the semi-minor axis b, the geometric mean of the two limiting speeds is −2 ε = μ a which is the speed of a body in a circular orbit whose radius is a. The words pericenter and apocenter are often seen, although periapsis/apoapsis are preferred in technical usage, various related terms are used for other celestial objects. The -gee, -helion and -astron and -galacticon forms are used in the astronomical literature when referring to the Earth, Sun, stars. The suffix -jove is occasionally used for Jupiter, while -saturnium has very rarely used in the last 50 years for Saturn. The -gee form is used as a generic closest approach to planet term instead of specifically applying to the Earth. During the Apollo program, the terms pericynthion and apocynthion were used when referring to the Moon, regarding black holes, the term peri/apomelasma was used by physicist Geoffrey A. Landis in 1998 before peri/aponigricon appeared in the scientific literature in 2002

17.
Orbital inclination
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Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an objects orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth directly above the equator, the plane of the orbit is the same as the Earths equatorial plane. The general case is that the orbit is tilted, it spends half an orbit over the northern hemisphere. If the orbit swung between 20° north latitude and 20° south latitude, then its orbital inclination would be 20°, the inclination is one of the six orbital elements describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit. It is the angle between the plane and the plane of reference, normally stated in degrees. For a satellite orbiting a planet, the plane of reference is usually the plane containing the planets equator, for planets in the Solar System, the plane of reference is usually the ecliptic, the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun. This reference plane is most practical for Earth-based observers, therefore, Earths inclination is, by definition, zero. Inclination could instead be measured with respect to another plane, such as the Suns equator or the invariable plane, the inclination of orbits of natural or artificial satellites is measured relative to the equatorial plane of the body they orbit, if they orbit sufficiently closely. The equatorial plane is the perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the central body. An inclination of 30° could also be described using an angle of 150°, the convention is that the normal orbit is prograde, an orbit in the same direction as the planet rotates. Inclinations greater than 90° describe retrograde orbits, thus, An inclination of 0° means the orbiting body has a prograde orbit in the planets equatorial plane. An inclination greater than 0° and less than 90° also describe prograde orbits, an inclination of 63. 4° is often called a critical inclination, when describing artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, because they have zero apogee drift. An inclination of exactly 90° is an orbit, in which the spacecraft passes over the north and south poles of the planet. An inclination greater than 90° and less than 180° is a retrograde orbit, an inclination of exactly 180° is a retrograde equatorial orbit. For gas giants, the orbits of moons tend to be aligned with the giant planets equator, the inclination of exoplanets or members of multiple stars is the angle of the plane of the orbit relative to the plane perpendicular to the line-of-sight from Earth to the object. An inclination of 0° is an orbit, meaning the plane of its orbit is parallel to the sky. An inclination of 90° is an orbit, meaning the plane of its orbit is perpendicular to the sky

18.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system

19.
Mare Tranquillitatis
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Mare Tranquillitatis is a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the Moon. The mare material within the basin consists of basalt formed in the intermediate to young age group of the Upper Imbrian epoch, the surrounding mountains are thought to be of the Lower Imbrian epoch, but the actual basin is probably Pre-Nectarian. The basin has irregular margins and lacks a defined multiple-ringed structure, palus Somni, on the northeastern rim of the mare, is filled with the basalt that spilled over from Tranquillitatis. This Mare has a bluish tint relative to the rest of the moon. The color is due to higher metal content in the basaltic soil or rocks. Unlike many other maria, there is no mass concentration, or gravitational high, mascons were identified in the center of other maria from Doppler tracking of the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1968. The gravity field was mapped at higher resolution with later orbiters such as Lunar Prospector and GRAIL, Mare Tranquillitatis was named in 1651 by astronomers Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Battista Riccioli in their lunar map Almagestum novum. Surveyor 5 landed in Mare Tranquillitatis on September 11,1967 and this mare was also the landing site for the first crewed landing on the Moon on July 20,1969, at 20,18 UTC. After astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made a touchdown in the Apollo 11 Lunar Module named Eagle, Armstrong told flight controllers on Earth, Houston. The landing area at 0. 8° N,23, along the periphery of the mare are several bay-shaped features that have been given names, Sinus Amoris, Sinus Asperitatis, Sinus Concordiae, and Sinus Honoris. At the left is the east side of Mare Tranquillitatis, with the craters Franz, Lyell, the bay of dark mare at left is Sinus Concordiae, with islands of older, light highland material. At right is the crater Cauchy, which lies between the Rupes Cauchy and Cauchy rille, the center photo shows the central mare with craters Vitruvius and Gardner. At the horizon are lighter highlands at the margin of the mare. The crater Jansen is visible at the edges of both the center and right photos, the right photo shows the western mare, with the craters Dawes and the large Plinius, with the Plinius Rilles in the foreground. These photos were taken within minutes of each other as the Command Module America orbited the moon, the sun elevation drops from 46 degrees at left to 30 degrees at right. Israeli psych-progressive rock band Jericho Jones recorded a song named Mare Tranquilitatas as the track of their UK album release Junkies. The band is known as The Churchills. Mare Tranquillitatis is also the name of a composition of music by composer Vangelis on his 1976 album, Sea of Tranquility is also a song by the progressive rock band Barclay James Harvest, included in their 1977 album Gone to Earth

20.
Apollo program
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Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon, Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first manned flight in 1968. It achieved its goal of manned lunar landing, despite the setback of a 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration, Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. The crew returned to Earth safely by using the Lunar Module as a lifeboat for these functions, Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit, Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 pounds of rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moons composition. The program laid the foundation for NASAs subsequent human spaceflight capability, Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and manned spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, while the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three astronauts. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a station, circumlunar flights. The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that I was naming the spacecraft like Id name my baby. Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, in July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with a mission module cabin separate from the module. On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led by Maxime Faget, to serve as a gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of prestige, pledging to make the US not first but, first and, first if. Despite Kennedys rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president and he knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned Moon landing. On April 12,1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make a commitment on Americas response to the Soviets

21.
Apollo 10
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Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the United States Apollo space program, and the second to orbit the Moon. Launched on May 18,1969, it was the F mission, the Lunar Module followed a descent orbit to within 8.4 nautical miles of the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent for landing would normally begin. Its success enabled the first landing to be attempted on the Apollo 11 mission two months later. According to the 2002 Guinness World Records, Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a vehicle,39,897 km/h on May 26,1969. The missions call signs included the names of the Peanuts characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz also drew some mission-related artwork for NASA. Charles M. Duke, Jr. Joseph H. Engle James B. Irwin Jack R. Thomas P. Stafford had flown on Gemini 6 and Gemini 9, John W. Young had flown on Gemini 3 and Gemini 10, and Eugene A. Cernan had flown with Stafford on Gemini 9. In addition, Apollo 10 was the only Saturn V flight from Launch Complex 39B, vehicle on the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. It was on this flight that John Young became the first human to fly solo around the Moon, the Apollo 10 crew are also the humans who have traveled the farthest away from home, some 408,950 kilometers from their homes and families in Houston. The Apollo 10 crew reached the farthest point in their orbit around the far side of the Moon at about the same time Earths rotation put Houston nearly a full Earth diameter away. By the normal rotation in place during Apollo, the crew would have been scheduled to fly on Apollo 13. However, Alan Shepard was given the Apollo 13 command slot instead, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. Commander of the Apollo 10 backup crew, was enraged and resigned from NASA. Later, Shepards crew was forced to switch places with Jim Lovells tentative Apollo 14 crew, eisele, despite his issues with management, was always intended for future assignment to the Apollo Applications Program and not a lunar mission. This dress rehearsal for a Moon landing brought the Apollo Lunar Module to 8.4 nautical miles from the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent would begin on the actual landing. Practicing this approach orbit would refine knowledge of the gravitational field needed to calibrate the powered descent guidance system to within 1 nautical mile needed for a landing. Earth-based observations, unmanned spacecraft, and Apollo 8 had respectively allowed calibration to within 200 nautical miles,20 nautical miles, the lowest measured point in the trajectory was 47,400 feet above the lunar surface at 21,29,43 UTC. Apollo 10 was the first mission to carry a television camera inside the spacecraft. After reaching lunar orbit three days later, Young remained in the Command Module Charlie Brown while Stafford and Cernan entered the LM Snoopy and they surveyed the landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, then separated the descent stage and fired the ascent engine to return to Charlie Brown

22.
Apollo 12
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Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14,1969, from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, the landing site for the mission was located in the southeastern portion of the Ocean of Storms. Unlike the first landing on Apollo 11, Conrad and Bean achieved a landing at their expected location, the site of the Surveyor 3 unmanned probe. They carried the first color television camera to the surface on an Apollo flight. On one of two moonwalks, they visited the Surveyor and removed some parts for return to Earth, the mission ended on November 24 with a successful splashdown. It was the first rocket launch attended by an incumbent US president, thirty-six-and-a-half seconds after lift-off, the vehicle triggered a lightning discharge through itself and down to the Earth through the Saturns ionized plume. Protective circuits on the cells in the Service Module falsely detected overloads. A second strike at 52 seconds after launch knocked out the 8-ball attitude indicator, the telemetry stream at Mission Control was garbled. However, the continued to fly correctly, the strikes had not affected the Saturn V Instrument Unit. The loss of all three fuel cells put the CSM entirely on batteries, which were unable to maintain normal 75-ampere launch loads on the 28-volt DC bus, one of the AC inverters dropped offline. These power supply problems lit nearly every warning light on the control panel, Aaron made a call, Try SCE to aux, which switched the SCE to a backup power supply. The switch was fairly obscure, and neither Flight Director Gerald Griffin, CAPCOM Gerald Carr, nor Mission Commander Pete Conrad immediately recognized it. Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean, flying in the seat as the spacecraft systems engineer. Aarons quick thinking and Beans memory saved what could have been an aborted mission, Bean put the fuel cells back on line, and with telemetry restored, the launch continued successfully. Once in Earth parking orbit, the crew checked out their spacecraft before re-igniting the S-IVB third stage for trans-lunar injection. The lightning strikes had caused no serious permanent damage, if they were indeed disabled, the Command Module would have crashed uncontrollably into the Pacific Ocean and killed the crew instantly. Since there was no way to figure out whether or not this was the case, the parachutes deployed and functioned normally at the end of the mission. After Lunar Module separation, the S-IVB was intended to fly into solar orbit, the S-IVB auxiliary propulsion system was fired, and the remaining propellants vented to slow it down to fly past the Moons trailing edge

23.
Human spaceflight
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Human spaceflight is space travel with a crew or passengers aboard the spacecraft. The first human spaceflight was launched by the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961 as a part of the Vostok program, humans have been continuously present in space for 16 years and 153 days on the International Space Station. All early human spaceflight was crewed, where at least some of the passengers acted to carry out tasks of piloting or operating the spacecraft, after 2015, several human-capable spacecraft are being explicitly designed with the ability to operate autonomously. Since the retirement of the US Space Shuttle in 2011, only Russia and China have maintained human spaceflight capability with the Soyuz program, currently, all expeditions to the International Space Station use Soyuz vehicles, which remain attached to the station to allow quick return if needed. The United States is developing commercial crew transportation to facilitate access to ISS and low Earth orbit. While spaceflight has typically been an activity, commercial spaceflight has gradually been taking on a greater role. NASA has also played a role to stimulate private spaceflight through programs such as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, the vehicles used for these services could then serve both NASA and potential commercial customers. Commercial resupply of ISS began two years after the retirement of the Shuttle, and commercial crew launches could begin by 2017 and these rockets were large enough to be adapted to carry the first artificial satellites into low Earth orbit. The USSR launched the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin into an orbit in Vostok 1 on a Vostok 3KA rocket. The US launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard on a flight aboard Freedom 7 on a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecrafts attitude, and landed inside it, the first American in orbit was John Glenn aboard Friendship 7, launched 20 February 1962 on a Mercury-Atlas rocket. The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules, including the first woman in space, the US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flight and four in orbit through 1963. US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon, Geminis objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used in the Moon mission. They were able to launch two orbital flights in 1964 and 1965 and achieved the first spacewalk, made by Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 on 8 March 1965, but Voskhod did not have Geminis capability to maneuver in orbit, and the program was terminated. In July 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedys goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon 21 July, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on the Moon through 1972, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The crew of Apollo 13, Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, survived a catastrophic in-flight spacecraft failure, meanwhile, the USSR secretly pursued human lunar orbiting and landing programs. On losing the Moon race, they concentrated on the development of stations, using the Soyuz as a ferry to take cosmonauts to. They started with a series of Salyut sortie stations from 1971 to 1986, after the Apollo program, the US launched the Skylab sortie space station in 1973, manning it for 171 days with three crews aboard Apollo spacecraft

24.
Moon landing
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A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions, the first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Unions Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969, there have been six manned U. S. landings and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from 22 August 1976 until 14 December 2013. To date, the United States is the country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon. Since then, twelve Soviet and U. S. spacecraft have used braking rockets to make landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the surface during the Luna 9. The U. S. followed with five unmanned Surveyor soft landings, the Soviet Union achieved the first unmanned lunar soil sample return with the Luna 16 probe on 24 September 1970. This was followed by Luna 20 and Luna 24 in 1972 and 1976, following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first Lunokhod, Luna E-8 No.201, the Luna 17 and Luna 21 were successful unmanned lunar rover missions in 1970 and 1973. Many missions were failures at launch, in addition, several unmanned landing missions achieved the Lunar surface but were unsuccessful, including, Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed on landing, and the U. S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing, more recently, other nations have crashed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon at speeds of around 8,000 kilometres per hour, often at precise, planned locations. These have generally been end-of-life lunar orbiters that, because of system degradations, japans lunar orbiter Hiten impacted the Moons surface on 10 April 1993. The European Space Agency performed a controlled impact with their orbiter SMART-1 on 3 September 2006. Indian Space Research Organisation performed a controlled impact with its Moon Impact Probe on 14 November 2008. The MIP was a probe from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The Chinese lunar orbiter Change 1 executed a crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission Change 3 was launched on 1 December 2013, a total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface, all Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions had a rover for increased mobility, in order to go to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave the gravity well of the Earth

25.
Coordinated Universal Time
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Coordinated Universal Time, abbreviated to UTC, is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean time at 0° longitude. It is one of closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, the first Coordinated Universal Time was informally adopted on 1 January 1960. This change also adopted leap seconds to simplify future adjustments, a number of proposals have been made to replace UTC with a new system that would eliminate leap seconds, but no consensus has yet been reached. Leap seconds are inserted as necessary to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of universal time, see the Current number of leap seconds section for the number of leap seconds inserted to date. The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC and this abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT, while French speakers proposed TUC, the compromise that emerged was UTC, which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time. Time zones around the world are expressed using positive or negative offsets from UTC, the westernmost time zone uses UTC−12, being twelve hours behind UTC, the easternmost time zone, theoretically, uses UTC+12, being twelve hours ahead of UTC. In 1995, the nation of Kiribati moved those of its atolls in the Line Islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 so that the country would all be on the same day. UTC is used in internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the internet, computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC from a number of official internet UTC servers, for sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals. UTC is also the standard used in aviation, e. g. for flight plans. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones, the International Space Station also uses UTC as a time standard. Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many time zones, UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles under EU and AETR rules. UTC divides time into days, hours, minutes and seconds, days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes, the number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but with an occasional leap second, it may be 61 or 59 instead

26.
Merritt Island, Florida
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Merritt Island is a census-designated place in Brevard County, Florida, located on the eastern Floridian coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 34,743 and it is part of the Palm Bay – Melbourne – Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The name Merritt Island also refers to the extent of the former island, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and NASAs John F. Kennedy Space Center are located on the northern part of Merritt Island. The southern area is residential, with centralized light commercial. The island does not belong to any official city, the central part of Merritt Island, previously known as Merritt City, is home to the majority of the population and includes the local high school, library, and shopping district. Merritt Island owes its name to the king of Spain, the entire island was part of a land grant given by the king to a nobleman named Merritt. In 1605, Spanish explorer Alvaro Mexia visited while on a mission to the local tribes living in the Indian River area. He called the tribe the Ulumay. Merritt Island is the prominent island on a map he drew of the area, a copy of which is in the archives at the Library of Congress. In April 1788, French botanist André Michaux traveled in Merritt Island and he spent five days looking for plants. He wrote a letter on April 24,1788 from St Augustine and he reported discovering the flag or bigflower paw-paw, Asimina obovata. In 1837, Fort Ann was constructed on the east coast of Merritt Island, Merritt Islands recent history dates back to the mid-19th century and centers on the growth of citrus, stressing the cultivation of pineapples and oranges. The Indian River oranges and grapefruit come from this sandy area, the islands population grew in the 1950s and 1960s as the Space Race began and nearby NASA expanded. Construction of a canal to the Intracoastal Waterway from the Atlantic Ocean cut off the northern half of the island for many years. To this day, the portion of the island remains slightly less developed. The small towns on the island vanished with the coming of the Space Age, in 1988, citizens defeated a proposed incorporation into a city, 77% opposed to 23% in favor. Sea Ray operated a factory on Merritt Island from 1978 to 2012, at one time it employed 1200 people. It closed the plant in 2013, according to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 47.2 square miles, of which 17.5 square miles is land and 29.7 square miles, or 62. 88%, is water

27.
Eastern Time Zone
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Places that use Eastern Standard Time when observing standard time are 5 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. Eastern Daylight Time, when observing daylight saving time DST is 4 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time, in the northern parts of the time zone, on the second Sunday in March, at 2,00 a. m. EST, clocks are advanced to 3,00 a. m. EDT leaving a one-hour gap, on the first Sunday in November, at 2,00 a. m. EDT, clocks are moved back to 1,00 a. m, southern parts of the zone do not observe daylight saving time. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 ruled that daylight saving time would run from the last Sunday of April until the last Sunday in October in the United States, the act was amended to make the first Sunday in April the beginning of daylight saving time as of 1987. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended daylight saving time in the United States beginning in 2007. So local times change at 2,00 a. m. EST to 3,00 a. m. EDT on the second Sunday in March, in Canada, the time changes as it does in the United States. However, a handful of communities unofficially observe Eastern Time because they are part of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area – Phenix City, Smiths Station, Lanett, and Valley. Florida, All of Florida is in the Eastern Time zone except for the portion of the Florida Panhandle west of the Apalachicola River, as the Eastern–Central zone boundary approaches the Gulf of Mexico, it follows the Bay/Gulf county line. Indiana, All of Indiana observes Eastern Time except for six counties in the Chicago metropolitan area. Kentucky, Roughly, the half of the state, including all of metropolitan Louisville, is in the Eastern Time Zone. Historically the entire state observed Central Time, when daylight saving time was first introduced, the Lower Peninsula remained on DST after it formally ended, effectively re-aligning itself into the Eastern Time Zone. The Upper Peninsula continued to observe Central Time until 1972, when all, Tennessee, Most of the eastern third of Tennessee is legally on Eastern Time. Eastern Time is also used somewhat as a de facto official time for all of the United States, since it includes the capital and the largest city. Major professional sports leagues also post all game times in Eastern time, for example, a game time between two teams from Pacific Time Zone will still be posted in Eastern time. Most cable television and national broadcast networks advertise airing times in Eastern time, national broadcast networks generally have two primary feeds, an eastern feed for Eastern and Central time zones, and a tape-delayed western feed for the Pacific Time Zone. The prime time is set on Eastern and Pacific at 8,00 p. m. with the Central time zone stations receiving the eastern feed at 7,00 p. m. local time. Mountain Time Zone stations receive a separate feed at 7,00 p. m. local time, as Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, during the summer months, it has its own feed at 7,00 p. m. local time

28.
Apollo (spacecraft)
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The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo programs goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth. The expendable spacecraft consisted of a combined Command/Service Module and a Lunar Module, the design was based on the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous approach, two docked spacecraft were sent to the Moon and went into lunar orbit. While the LM separated and landed, the CSM remained in orbit, after the lunar excursion, the two craft rendezvoused and docked in lunar orbit, and the CSM returned the crew to Earth. The Command Module was the part of the space vehicle that returned with the crew to the Earths surface. The LES was jettisoned during launch upon reaching the point where it was no longer needed, two unmanned CSMs, one unmanned LM and one manned CSM were carried into space by Saturn IB launch vehicles for low Earth orbit Apollo missions. After conclusion of the Apollo program, four CSMs were launched on Saturn IBs for three Skylab Earth orbital missions and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The major part of the Apollo spacecraft was a vehicle designed for Earth orbital, translunar, and lunar orbital flight. This consisted of a command module supported by a service module, the Command Module was the control center for the Apollo spacecraft and living quarters for the three crewmen. It was the part of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle that returned to Earth intact. The oxygen was used for breathing, and the fuel cells produced water for drinking. On Apollo 15,16 and 17 it also carried an instrument package, with a mapping camera. A major portion of the module was taken up by propellant. Capable of multiple restarts, this placed the Apollo spacecraft into and out of lunar orbit. The Service Module remained attached to the Command Module throughout the mission and it was jettisoned just prior to reentry into the Earths atmosphere. The Lunar Module was a vehicle designed to land on the Moon and return to lunar orbit. It consisted of a descent stage and an ascent stage and it supplied life support systems for two astronauts for up to four to five days on the Apollo 15,16 and 17 missions. The spacecraft was designed and manufactured by the Grumman Aircraft Company, the descent stage contained the landing gear, landing radar antenna, descent rocket engine, and fuel to land on the moon. The Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter, built by North American Aviation, was an aluminum structure which supported the Service Module above the Saturn S-IVB rocket stage

29.
Space Race
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The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, for supremacy in spaceflight capability. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, the Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4,1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, the race peaked with the July 20,1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed manned lunar missions, and eventually cancelled them, the Space Race has left a legacy of Earth communications and weather satellites, and continuing human space presence on the International Space Station. It has also sparked increases in spending on education and research and development, the origins of the Space Race can be traced to Germany, beginning in the 1930s and continuing during World War II when Nazi Germany researched and built operational ballistic missiles. Wernher von Braun, a young engineering prodigy, was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army program at Kummersdorf-West in 1932, von Braun dreamed of conquering outer space with rockets, and did not initially see the military value in missile technology. They led the team built the Aggregate-4 rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach outer space during its test flight program in 1942 and 1943. By 1943, Germany began mass-producing the A-4 as the Vergeltungswaffe 2 and its supersonic speed meant there was no defense against it, and radar detection provided little warning. Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945, after the war, the V-2 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs. The United States also acquired a number of complete V2 rockets. The German rocket center in Peenemünde was located in the part of Germany. On Stalins orders, the Soviet Union sent its best rocket engineers to this region to see what they could salvage for future weapons systems, the Soviet rocket engineers were led by Sergei Korolev. He had been involved in clubs and early Soviet rocket design in the 1930s. After the war, he became the USSRs chief rocket and spacecraft engineer and his identity was kept a state secret throughout the Cold War, and he was identified publicly only as the Chief Designer. In the West, his name was officially revealed when he died in 1966. They were not allowed to participate in final Soviet missile design, with their help, particularly Helmut Gröttrups group, Korolev reverse-engineered the A-4 and built his own version of the rocket, the R-1, in 1948. Later, he developed his own designs, though many of these designs were influenced by the Gröttrup Groups G4-R10 design from 1949. The Germans were eventually repatriated in 1951–53 and he also started developing liquid-fueled rockets in 1921, yet he had not been taken seriously by the public

30.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation

31.
John F. Kennedy
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Kennedy was a member of the Democratic Party, and his New Frontier domestic program was largely enacted as a memorial to him after his death. Kennedy also established the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, Kennedys time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Cuba, a failed attempt was made at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in April 1961. He subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain approval for a war against Cuba. After military service in the United States Naval Reserve in World War II and he was elected subsequently to the U. S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President, and Republican presidential candidate, Richard Nixon in the 1960 U. S, at age 43, he became the youngest elected president and the second-youngest president. Kennedy was also the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president, to date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22,1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon and determined to have fired the shots that hit the President from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald two days later in a jail corridor, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded Kennedy after he died in the hospital. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, the majority of Americans alive at the time of the assassination, and continuing through 2013, believed that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was not the only shooter. Since the 1960s, information concerning Kennedys private life has come to light, including his health problems, Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians polls of U. S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallups history of systematically measuring job approval and his grandfathers P. J. Kennedy and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald were both Massachusetts politicians. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants, Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr. and seven younger siblings, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Ted. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade. In 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx and he attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years later, the moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury, in September 1931, Kennedy attended Choate, a boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, for 9th through 12th grade

32.
Jim Lovell
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James Arthur Jim Lovell Jr. Lovell was also the command module pilot of Apollo 8, the first Apollo mission to enter lunar orbit. He is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, Lovell was also the first person to fly in space four times. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1928, Lovell was the child of his mother Blanche, who was of Czech descent, and his father. For about two years, he and his mother resided with a relative in Terre Haute, Indiana and his mother then moved them to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Juneau High School and became an Eagle Scout. As a child, Lovell was interested in rocketry, and built flying models, from the fall of 1946 to the spring of 1948, he attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for two years under the Flying Midshipman program, where he joined the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity. While Lovell was attending pre-flight training in the summer of 1948, there were even worries that some or most of the pilots that graduated wouldnt have pilot billets to fill. He applied and was accepted to attend the United States Naval Academy in the fall of 1948 and he attended Annapolis for the full four years, graduating as an Ensign in the spring of 1952 with a B. S. degree. He then went to training at NAS Pensacola from October 1952 to February 1954. He married Marilyn Lillie Gerlach, the daughter of Lillie and Carl Gerlach, the two were high-school sweethearts at Juneau High School in Milwaukee. Marilyn initially was hesitant about dating Jim because he was two years older than she, but the two became inseparable after their first date. She transferred from Wisconsin State Teachers College to George Washington University in Washington D. C. so she could be near him while he was training in Annapolis and they married after his graduation from the Naval Academy on June 6,1952. They have four children, Barbara, James, Susan, due to her husband often being absent from the home because of training and missions, Marilyn was in charge of taking care of their household and four children. Their home life during the Apollo 13 mission of 1970 was portrayed in the 1995 film Apollo 13, Actress Kathleen Quinlan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Marilyn Lovell. In 1999 the Lovell family opened Lovells of Lake Forest, a dining restaurant in Lake Forest. The restaurant displays many artifacts from Lovells time with NASA, as well as from the filming of Apollo 13 and his son James Jay Lovell III was the executive chef. He sold the restaurant to Jay and his wife Darice in 2006, the Lovell family announced that the restaurant building and surrounding property was on the market in February 2014. The restaurant closed on April 12,2015, and the property was auctioned on April 22,2015, upon completion of pilot training Lovell served at sea flying F2H Banshee night fighters from 1954 to 1957

33.
STS-26
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STS-26 was the 26th NASA Space Shuttle mission and the seventh flight of the orbiter Discovery. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 29 September 1988, STS-26 was declared the Return to Flight mission, being the first mission after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 28 January 1986. STS-26 was also the first all-veteran crew mission since Apollo 11, the crew roster for STS-26 was based on the original crew assignment for STS-61-F, which would have launched the Ulysses probe from Challenger in 1986. Ulysses was eventually launched on STS-41, Hauck, Lounge and Hilmers were all assigned to that flight, with Roy D. Bridges, Jr. as pilot. Bridges never flew again after the Challenger disaster, but would become the Director of Langley Research Center. Covey was the CAPCOM operator during the STS-51-L launch who uttered the words, Challenger, go at throttle up and he also would have been the CAPCOM operator for the canceled STS-61-F mission during launch and landing. Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Pad B, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, the launch was delayed by one hour and 38 minutes due to unseasonable and unusual light winds, and the need to replace fuses in the cooling systems of two crew members flight suits. The suits were repaired, and a waiver was issued for the conditions after officials determined there was a sufficient safety margin for wind loads on the orbiters wing leading edges. At T-1,30, it was proposed that the launch be delayed at T-0,31 due to an air pressure issue. It was quickly determined that the pressure had been increased slightly by the activation of the oxygen systems in the crews flight suits. The shuttle crew, all astronauts, included Commander Frederick H. Rick Hauck, Pilot Richard O. Covey. The primary payload for the STS-26 mission, a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, was successfully deployed, the orbiter sustained only minor Thermal Protection System tile damage, and the redesigned post-Challenger solid rocket boosters showed no signs of leakage or overheating at any of the joints. Two minor problems occurred during the flight, after ascent, the Flash Evaporator System for cooling the orbiter iced up and shut down, increasing the crew cabin temperature to approximately 87 °F. The problem was resolved on Flight Day 4 and cooler temperatures resulted, a Ku-band antenna for communications was deployed on Flight Day 2, but it failed to respond properly and had to be stowed for the remainder of the mission. During STS-26, Discovery became the first spacecraft to fly in space equipped with a VCU, the VCU was created by SCI Systems in Huntsville, Alabama, and was based on technology licensed from the Votan company. This speech recognition system controlled the cameras and monitors that were used by the crew to monitor the Canadarm mechanical arm mounted in the cargo bay, because of the experimental nature of speech recognition at the time, this system was not used for any critical operations. This problem was corrected by retraining the templates and it was retested and found to be operational with a recognition success rate of over 96%. It was concluded that weightless conditions caused a change in human speech

34.
Gemini 12
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Gemini 12 was a 1966 manned spaceflight in NASAs Project Gemini. It was the 10th and final manned Gemini flight, the 18th manned American spaceflight, commanded by Gemini VII veteran James A. Lovell, the flight featured three periods of extravehicular activity by rookie Edwin Buzz Aldrin, lasting a total of 5 hours and 30 minutes. It also achieved the fifth rendezvous and fourth docking with an Agena target vehicle, Gemini XII marked a successful conclusion of the Gemini program, achieving the last of its goals by successfully demonstrating that astronauts can effectively work outside of spacecraft. This was instrumental in paving the way for the Apollo program to achieve its goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. Stuart A. Roosa Charles Conrad Jr. William A. Anders Mass,3,762.1 kilograms Perigee,160.8 kilometers Apogee,270.6 kilometers Inclination,28. 87° Period,88. All launch vehicle systems performed nominally during powered flight, but at staging there was a recurrence of the first stage oxidizer tank rupture first seen on Gemini 10s launch. On Gemini 12, the tank appeared to have also ruptured as a white cloud was seen emitting from the spent stage along with the orange nitrogen tetroxide. Another episode of Green Man also occurred at SECO, referring to pitch gyrations caused by pressure buildup in the second stage protective skirt, at the completion of the previous Gemini flight, the program still had not demonstrated that an astronaut could work easily and efficiently outside the spacecraft. Two more stand-up EVAs also went smoothly, as did the by-now routine rendezvous and docking with an Agena which was done using the onboard computer. The climb to an orbit, however, was canceled because of a problem with the Agena booster. During orbital injection, the GATV engine experienced a drop in turbopump speed lasting about 2.5 seconds, after this, pump performance returned to normal. Telemetry data indicated erratic pump speeds, but engine performance did not reflect this, ground controllers decided not to risk the planned orbital boost maneuver since the exact reason for the pump slowdown was unclear. Following Gemini 12s reentry and during the GATVs 63rd orbit, they attempted to fire the propulsion system and it was suspected that a turbopump bearing failure caused the anomalous conditions during orbital injection, followed by heating and melting of pump components. The inability of ground controllers to start the engine during the 63rd orbit was possibly due to melted or loose debris blocking the fuel valve, the telemetry data falsely reporting erratic pump speed was concluded to be debris being knocked around and affecting the data probes. Many documentaries afterward largely credit the spacewalk innovations, including the underwater training, by May 1966, delays in making Apollo ready for flight just by itself, and the extra time needed to incorporate compatibility with the Gemini, made that impractical. This became moot when slippage in readiness of the Apollo spacecraft caused the last-quarter 1966 target date to be missed, two micrometeorite collection experiments, as well as three space phenomena photography experiments, were not fully completed. The capsule was controlled on reentry by computer and splashed down 4.8 kilometers from its target, the crew were taken aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp. The Gemini 12 mission was supported by the following U. S. Department of Defense resources,9,775 personnel,65 aircraft and 12 ships, postflight medical examination disclosed no unusual conditions in either astronaut

35.
Apollo 9
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Apollo 9 was the third manned mission in the United States Apollo space program and the first flight of the Command/Service Module with the Lunar Module. The mission was the manned launch of a Saturn V rocket. The mission proved the LM worthy of manned spaceflight, further tests on the Apollo 10 mission would prepare the LM for its ultimate goal, landing on the Moon. They returned to Earth on March 13,1969, * Williams was killed in October 1967 when the T-38 he was flying crashed near Tallahassee, and was replaced with Alan L. Bean. This was to be followed by a second block I flight, AS-205, to be crewed by Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham. The third manned mission, designated AS-207/208, was planned to fly the block II Command Module, however, delays in the block I CSM development pushed AS-204 into 1967. On January 26,1967, they were training for flight, expected to occur in late 1967, in the first block II Command Module 101 at the North American plant in Downey. As it turned out, a 1967 launch of AS-205/208 would have been impossible even absent the Apollo 1 accident, NASA was able to use the 18-month hiatus to catch up with development and unmanned testing of the LM and the Saturn V launch vehicle. This would be followed by a higher Earth orbit flight, to be crewed by Frank Borman, Michael Collins, Slayton asked McDivitt and Borman which mission they preferred to fly, McDivitt wanted to fly the LM, while Borman volunteered for the pioneering lunar flight. Therefore, Slayton swapped the crews, and McDivitts crew flew Apollo 9, the crew swap also affected who would be the first crew to land on the Moon, when the crews for Apollo 8 and 9 were swapped, their backup crews were also swapped. It was also the first space docking of two vehicles with a crew transfer between them. Apollo 9 gave proof that the Apollo spacecraft were up to this critical task, for this and all subsequent Apollo flights, the crews were allowed to name their own spacecraft. The gangly LM was named Spider, and the CSM was labeled Gumdrop because of the Command Modules shape and these names were required as radio call signs when the vehicles flew independently. McDivitt and Schweickart later test-flew the LM, and practiced separation and they flew the LM up to 111 miles from Gumdrop, using the engine on the descent stage to propel them originally, before jettisoning it and using the ascent stage to return. This test flight represented the first flight of a spacecraft that was not equipped to reenter the Earths atmosphere. The splashdown point was 23°15′N, 67°56′W,160 nautical miles east of the Bahamas, Apollo 9 was the last spacecraft to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean. The Command Module was displayed at the Michigan Space and Science Center, Jackson, Michigan, in May 2004, it was moved to the San Diego Aerospace Museum. The LM ascent stage orbit decayed on October 23,1981, the S-IVB stage J-2 engine was restarted after Lunar Module extraction and propelled the stage into solar orbit by burning to depletion

36.
Apollo 8
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Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis, at the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8s successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U. S. President John F. Kennedys goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27,1968, the crew was named Time magazines Men of the Year for 1968 upon their return. Lovell was originally the CMP on the crew, with Michael Collins as the prime crews CMP. However, Collins was replaced in July 1968, after suffering a cervical disc herniation that required surgery to repair. This crew was unique among pre-shuttle era missions in that the commander was not the most experienced member of the crew, as Lovell had flown twice before, on Gemini VII and Gemini XII. When Lovell was rotated to the crew, no one with experience on CSM-103 was available, so Aldrin was moved to CMP. Neil Armstrong went on to command Apollo 11, where Aldrin was returned to the LMP position, Haise was rotated out of the crew and onto the backup crew of Apollo 11 as LMP. The Earth-based mission control teams for Apollo 8 consisted of astronauts assigned to the crew, as well as non-astronaut flight directors. They also served as CAPCOMs during the mission, for Apollo 8, these crew members included astronauts John S. Bull, Vance D. Brand, Gerald P. Carr, and Ken Mattingly. The mission control teams on Earth rotated in three shifts, each led by a flight director, the directors for Apollo 8 included Clifford E. Charlesworth, Glynn Lunney, and Milton Windler. The triangular shape of the insignia symbolizes the shape of the Apollo Command Module and it shows a red figure-8 looping around the Earth and Moon representing the mission number as well as the circumlunar nature of the mission. On the red number 8 are the names of the three astronauts, the initial design of the insignia was developed by Jim Lovell. The graphic design of the insignia was done by Houston artist, Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 had been A missions, unmanned tests of the Saturn V launch vehicle using an unmanned Block I production model of the Apollo Command and Service Module in Earth orbit. Apollo 7, scheduled for October 1968, would be a manned Earth-orbit flight of the CSM, further missions depended on the readiness of the Lunar Module. This would mean delaying the D and subsequent missions, endangering the programs goal of a landing before the end of 1969. George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, since the Command/Service Module would be ready three months before the Lunar Module, a CSM-only mission could be flown in December 1968

37.
Fred Haise
–
Fred Wallace Haise Jr. is an American aeronautical engineer, fighter pilot with the U. S. Marine Corps and the U. S. Air Force, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon and he was to have been the sixth person to land and walk on the Moon, but the Apollo 13 mission was aborted before lunar landing. He went on to fly Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests in 1977 and he was a Boy Scout, earning the rank of Star Scout. Eligible for the draft and despite being apprehensive of flying, he joined the aviation cadet training program. Haise underwent Naval Aviator training from 1952 to 1954 and served as a U. S. Marine Corps fighter pilot at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, Haise has accumulated 9,300 hours flying time, including 6,200 hours in jets. He then worked for the newly created NASA, first as a pilot at the Lewis Research Center near Cleveland. His air guard unit was called up during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, Haise completed post-graduate courses at the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California in 1964, and the Harvard Business Schools Advanced Management Program in 1972. He received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Western Michigan University in 1970, in 1966, Haise was one of 19 new astronauts selected for NASA Astronaut Group 5. He had already been working with NASA for several years as a research pilot. He was the first astronaut among his class to be assigned to a mission, Haise flew as the Lunar Module Pilot on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970. Haise was slated to become the human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 13 behind Lovell. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell eventually became the fifth and sixth, respectively, on Apollo 14, during this flight Fred developed a UTI and later kidney infections. These caused him to be in pain for most of the trip, Haise remained in the astronaut rotation and served as the backup mission Commander for Apollo 16. Though there was no selection, Haise was prospectively slated to command Apollo 19 with William R. Pogue as Command Module Pilot. However, the mission was canceled in late 1970 due to budget cuts, after completing his backup assignment on Apollo 16, Haise moved over to the Space Shuttle program. In 1977, he participated in the programs Approach and Landing Tests at Edwards Air Force Base, along with C. Gordon Fullerton as Pilot, Haise as Commander piloted the Space Shuttle Enterprise in free flight to three successful landings after being released from the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. These tests successfully verified the flight characteristics, an important step toward the overall success of the program. However, delays in the Shuttle program development as well as an increase in Skylabs orbital decay led to the mission being abandoned

38.
William Anders
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William Alison Bill Anders, is a former United States Air Force officer, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. Anders, along with Apollo 8 crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, is one of the first three persons to have left Earth orbit and traveled to the Moon. Anders was born on October 17,1933, in Hong Kong, to U. S. Navy Lt. Arthur F. Anders, the family moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where Lt. Anders taught mathematics at the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School. After that, the Anders returned to China, but Muriel and they escaped by troop train to Canton, eating Campbells soup boiled in a bucket for sustenance. The hotel they stayed at was 200 yards from the river the Japanese were bombing and their ship was the first to go down the river after the Chinese had mined it. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second-highest rank, Anders attended St. Martins Academy and graduated from Grossmont High School in La Mesa, California, in 1951. Anders completed the Harvard Business Schools Advanced Management Program in 1979 and he was born and raised Catholic. Anders married Valerie Hoard in 1955, the couple have four sons and two daughters, Alan, Glen, Gregory, Eric, Gayle, and Diana. Following graduation from the U. S. Naval Academy, Anders took his commission in the U. S. Air Force, while at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in New Mexico, he was responsible for technical management of nuclear power reactor shielding and radiation effects programs. He has logged more than 8,000 hours of flight time, in 1963, Anders was selected by NASA in the third group of astronauts. While at NASA, he involved in dosimetry, radiation effects. He was the pilot for the Gemini 11 mission. Then in December 1968, he flew as Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 8 mission and this flight was the first to reach the Moon and also the first to orbit the Moon. Anders took a photograph of an Earthrise. He served as the backup Command Module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, before accepting an assignment with the National Aeronautics and Space Council, while maintaining his astronaut status. On August 6,1973, Anders was appointed to the five-member Atomic Energy Commission and he was also named as U. S. Chairman of the joint U. S. /USSR technology exchange program for fission and fusion power. At the completion of his term as NRC chairman, Anders was appointed Ambassador to Norway and he then ended his career with the federal government after 26 years and began work in the private sector. Anders briefly served as a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and he also oversaw GEs partnership with Chicago Bridge and Iron for making large steel pressure vessels in Memphis, Tennessee

39.
Ken Mattingly
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He had been scheduled to fly on Apollo 13, but was held back due to concerns about a potential illness. He later flew as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 16, making him one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Born March 17,1936, in Chicago, Illinois, Mattingly attended school in Hialeah, Florida and he graduated from Miami Edison High School in 1954, and went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Auburn University in 1958. He was also a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and he joined the U. S. Navy as an Ensign in 1958 and received his aviator wings in 1960. He was then assigned to Attack Squadron Thirty-five at NAS Oceana, Virginia, in July 1963, he served in Heavy Attack Squadron Eleven at NAS Sanford, Florida, where he flew the A-3B Skywarrior aircraft for two years and deployed aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. He has logged 7,200 hours of flight time—which includes 5,000 hours in jet aircraft, Mattingly was a student at the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB, California when NASA selected him as an astronaut in April 1966. Mattinglys first prime assignment was to be the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 13 mission, three days prior to launch, he was removed from the mission due to exposure to German measles and was replaced by the backup CM pilot, Jack Swigert. As a result, he missed the dramatic in-flight explosion that crippled the spacecraft, however, Mattingly was involved in helping the crew solve the problem of power conservation during re-entry. The swapout from Apollo 13 placed Mattingly on the crew that would fly Apollo 16, the crew included John W. Young, Mattingly, and Charles M. Duke, Jr. It was Dukes German measles that led to the Mattingly-Swigert swap on Apollo 13, the mission assigned to Apollo 16 was to collect samples from the lunar highlands near the crater Descartes. While in lunar orbit the scientific instruments aboard the Command/Service Module Casper extended the photographic, twenty-six separate scientific experiments were conducted both in lunar orbit and during cislunar coast. Major emphasis was placed on using man as an observer, capitalizing on the human eyes unique capabilities. During the return leg of the mission, Mattingly carried out an activity to retrieve film. Following his return to Earth, Mattingly served in managerial positions in the Space Shuttle development program. Additionally, the crew operated several scientific experiments located in the Orbiters cabin and in the payload bay and this experiment was a pathfinder for the first commercial venture to capitalize on the unique characteristics of space. The crew is also credited with effecting an in-flight repair which enabled them to activate the first operational Getaway Special, sTS-4 completed 112 orbits of the Earth before landing on a concrete runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on July 4,1982. STS-51-C, the first Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center, the crew included Ken Mattingly, Loren Shriver, James Buchli and Ellison Onizuka, and Gary Payton. STS-51-C performed its DOD mission which included deployment of a modified Inertial Upper Stage vehicle from the Space Shuttle Discovery, landing occurred on January 27,1985

40.
Apollo 13
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Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The mission was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. Jack Swigert as Command Module Pilot, Swigert was a late replacement for the original CM pilot Ken Mattingly, who was grounded by the flight surgeon after exposure to German measles. The story of the Apollo 13 mission has been dramatized multiple times and that crew was composed of L. Gordon Cooper, Jr, Donn F. Eisele, Edgar D. Mitchell. Deke Slayton, NASAs Director of Flight Crew Operations, never intended to rotate Cooper and Eisele to another mission and he assigned them to the backup crew simply because of a lack of flight-qualified manpower in the Astronaut Office at the time the assignment needed to be made. Slayton felt Cooper had no more than a small chance of receiving the Apollo 13 command, if he did an outstanding job with the assignment. Thus, the original assignment Slayton submitted to his superiors for this flight was, shepard, Jr, Stuart A. Roosa, Edgar D. Mitchell. Seven days before launch, the Backup Lunar Module Pilot, Charlie Duke and this exposed both the prime and backup crews, who trained together. Mattingly was found to be the one of the other five who had not had rubella as a child. Three days before launch, at the insistence of the Flight Surgeon, Mattingly never contracted rubella and was assigned after the mission as Command Module Pilot to Youngs crew, which later flew Apollo 16, the fifth mission to land on the Moon. Vance D. Brand, Jack R. Lousma, Joseph P. Kerwin, Gene Kranz – White Team, Glynn Lunney – Black Team, Milt Windler – Maroon Team, Gerry Griffin – Gold Team. The astronauts mission insignia was sculpted as a medallion titled Steeds of Apollo by Lumen Martin Winter and was struck by the Franklin Mint. Mass, CSM Odyssey 63,470 pounds, LM Aquarius 33,490 pounds, Perigee,99.3 nautical miles, Apogee,100.3 nautical miles, Inclination,31. 817°, Period,88.19 min. The Apollo 13 mission was to explore the Fra Mauro formation, or Fra Mauro highlands and it is a widespread, hilly selenological area thought to be composed of ejecta from the impact that formed Mare Imbrium. The next Apollo mission, Apollo 14, eventually made a flight to Fra Mauro. April 14,1970 UTC Oxygen tank explosion,03,07,53 UTC,173,790.5 nmi from Earth CSM power down, Crew was on board the USS Iwo Jima 45 minutes later. The mission was launched at the time,02,13,00 PM EST on April 11. An anomaly occurred when the second-stage, center engine shut down two minutes early. The engine shutdown was determined to be caused by severe pogo oscillations measured at a strength of 68 g, the vehicles guidance system shut the engine down in response to sensed thrust chamber pressure fluctuations

41.
Charles Duke
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Charles Moss Charlie Duke Jr. is an American engineer, retired U. S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and a former astronaut for NASA. As Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon. A former test pilot, Duke has logged 4,147 hours flying time, which includes 3,632 hours in jet aircraft, a resident of New Braunfels, Texas, he is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Duke was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 3,1935 and he attended Lancaster High School in Lancaster, South Carolina, and graduated as valedictorian from Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1953. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America and earned its highest rank, Duke was commissioned upon graduation from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1957. Duke completed advanced training on the F-86 Sabre aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, after completion of this training, Duke served three years as a fighter interceptor pilot with the 526th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. He graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1978 and he was promoted to Brigadier General in 1979, and retired in June 1986. In April 1966, Duke was one of the 19 selected for NASAs fifth group of astronauts, in 1969, he was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 10. He then served as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the first landing on the Moon, as CAPCOM, he became the voice of a Mission Control nervous by a long landing that almost expended all of the Lunar Module Eagles fuel. Dukes first words to the Apollo 11 crew on the surface of the Moon were flustered, Roger, tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, Duke was backup Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 13, however shortly before the mission he caught German measles from a friends child and inadvertently exposed the prime crew to the disease. As Ken Mattingly had no immunity to the disease, Mattingly was then replaced as Command Module Pilot by Jack Swigert. Mattingly would be reassigned as Command Module Pilot of Dukes flight and he also served as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17. Duke retired from NASA in December 1975, Apollo 16 was launched from John F. Kennedy Space Center and was the fifth manned lunar landing mission. The crew consisted of John W. Young as Commander, Ken Mattingly as Command Module Pilot, Apollo 16 was the first scientific expedition to inspect, survey, and sample materials and surface features in the Descartes region of the rugged lunar highlands. John Young commenced the then-record setting lunar surface stay of 71 hours and 14 minutes by maneuvering the lunar module Orion to a landing on the rough Cayley Plains, the Apollo 16 mission was concluded with a Pacific Ocean splashdown and subsequent recovery by USS Ticonderoga. Duke has been married to Dorothy Meade Claiborne of Atlanta, Georgia since June 1,1963 and they have two grown sons, Charles M. Duke III and Thomas C. He and his wife reside in New Braunfels, Texas, recreational interests include hunting, fishing, reading, and playing golf